A Killer's Grace
by Savage Midnight
Summary: He's waiting by the window. An interlude set after the events of A Killing Grace.


**Title: **A Killer's Grace  
**Author: **Savage Midnight  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Disclaimer: **Any characters or concepts familiar to the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling.  
**Summary: **_He's waiting by the window._  
**Author Notes: **Written for the Draco/Hermione Valentine Fic Exchange over at LJ. This is an interlude set after the events of _A Killing Grace_, but it can be read easily as a standalone. Readers don't need to worry about reading the original first. Thanks to my beta, Erin, for the last minute tweaks. You're a star.

---

He's waiting by the window when she enters, and it's as if nothing has changed at all.

It's been nearly a year since she's seen him, and he's different, somehow. He's not the boy she remembers and she can't quite pinpoint why.

She doesn't ask why he's here, sitting by her window, just the way he was all those months ago. She doesn't need to ask; she knows what day it is.

He watches her for a long while, a dark silhouette in her room. There's no moon tonight but she likes to think she can see the sharp grey of his eyes and the silver frost of his hair. She can't, but it doesn't hurt to pretend.

Does it?

She settles down on her bed and watches him watch her. He has his leg hitched up and bent at the knee, just like she remembers, but this time his right arm is hanging at his side. She lets her eyes follow it down and down until they fix on to the rose he's twirling absently between his fingertips.

It's beautiful. Even in the darkness she can see its colours as they crash and melt together, glowing silver and indigo and cerulean blue.

Hermione wonders if it's for her, or for someone else, a woman that neither of them will ever really forget. She wonders if Draco still misses her, the girl with the brunette curls and dark eyes, his lover and his betrayer. Is a year enough time to move on?

No, she thinks, remembering Harry. It's never enough.

And then he moves. Sliding gracefully from his seat, Draco steps towards her bed and sits beside her. He hands her the rose without a word and she accepts it without hesitation.

"I don't have much time," he finally says, and she nods in understanding.

"I know."

Too many people want Draco Malfoy dead. There are those who are hunting him as a Death Eater, as a murderer, and there are those who are hunting him as a traitor, as the man who helped Harry Potter finally defeat the Dark Lord. In the course of the night, the predator became the prey.

They both know that Hermione isn't waiting for the day he will finally be able to stop running. They know it's a long time coming.

But for now all is quiet and still, and she can hear him breathing beside her. He's alive and well, though maybe a little worse for the wear. If she turns her head slightly she can see the darkness in his face, and it's so different from the arrogant, carefree look of the boy she met months ago. It seems as if Draco won the battle but lost the war, and the hopelessness of it affects her more than she thought it would.

They've all lived without Harry Potter for eleven months now, but at least they're living. Even Ron. He's spending tonight with Luna Lovegood and Hermione had planned, quite happily, to sleep Valentine's Day away. But he's here now, and the last thing she wants to do is sleep. She wants to ask questions, so many questions that they don't have time for, but she knows that they'll have to wait for another time, when the war is nothing but a horrible memory, barely recalled by their children's children;, when the bloodshed is just a faded stain upon the ground.

She takes his hand instead, because she knows he's only here for a little peace. Maybe someday, all that will be left are memories and bloodstains, but for now they remember what it is to be soldiers, and they remember what it is to lose.

His fingers curl around hers in response and he pulls until she's straddling his lap. He still says nothing, but he kisses her, hot and hard and long, his hands sliding around her waist, his fingertips painting patterns on the small of her back. She sinks into him instinctively and cups her hands around his face, tilts his head up with her thumbs and slides her tongue into his mouth.

She needs peace, too. They fought so hard, and their reward was death and blood and loss. They both know how pointless it is to cry over the unfairness of it all, but they understand how important it is to live in spite of it. No waiting or hoping, just having and taking, and trying to move on when you can't have or take the things you want. Hermione wants a lot of things. She wants her friends back, alive and well, but she's not waiting for them, she's not hoping, because she had them once, and they're lost now. She can't change that.

And Draco loved someone once, had someone to love him not that long ago, but she's gone now, and he can't have her back, either. It's just the way it is. It doesn't make it hurt any less. It doesn't make life any easier, knowing you had them at some point. But crying over the unfairness of it is wasting time when there's still so much to have and to take.

So she takes and he takes, and they know in doing so they're giving something more, but they don't think about it. They just cling to each other and they make the most of it.

His hands curve back to her stomach and she feels the button of her jeans pop. His hand slides down, fingers slipping beneath the elastic of her panties to press against her and her eyes slam shut and her back arches.

God, she's missed him. It isn't hard without him, not like it is without Harry, but it's different. She doesn't love him and it makes it easier, somehow, because it doesn't take work or energy or thought to exist. It just is. They give and they take and it's nothing more than that.

She strips him of his shirt and traces his scars with her fingertips. She doesn't know the stories behind them but she can guess. There's a time and a place for puzzles and maybe one day she'll know all the answers, but this isn't it.

This is about peace, she knows, and as they fall into each other she wonders what will happen when he finally stops running.

She's not sure she wants to know.

---

He's gone come morning.

The rose is resting on the pillow beside her, colours melting into each other. She watches it thoughtfully for long moment, considering. It's too soft, too simple, for Draco. She can't pretend to know him, but she knows enough, and the gesture doesn't fit.

And then she slips her hand under the pillow and a small smile curves her lips.

The dagger slides out easily and she studies it admiringly. It's not the one she recognises, the one he carries with him constantly, but it's similar, smaller. And instead of a dragon, there is a lion carved into the silver hilt, its tail curving around the handle.

It's purely Draco. Beautiful, deadly, protective.

And it's hers.

She holds it for a while, gets used to the feel of it in her hand. And then she slips it back beneath her pillow and moves on.


End file.
